Nigerians and other Africans may find it a herculean task to watch events from the upcoming 2023 Africa Cup Of Nations (AFCON) due to TV rights npflupdates.com reports.
Multichoice yesterday issued a statement that Supersports will not air football fixtures from the Africa Cup Of Nations (AFCON). Reason is that, the company failed to secure the viewing rights of the biennial tournament.
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It’s no longer news that DStv(Supersports) is the major outlet that deals on sports across the globe and mostly in Africa. So, the news of the outlet not being able to air the tournament has come like a big blow to Nigerians.
2023 AFCON tournament to be aired live by Togolese TV
PUNCH in a recent publication revealed that the DStv blackout is not unconnected to the new order in the African football television space. And that emanated after Togolese broadcaster New World TV won the Free-to-Air and Pay TV rights to all CAF competitions(including CAF men’s and women’s Champions League) in the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
And the rights were previously held by the African Union of Broadcasters, SuperSport International, and Canal Plus.
Sources confirm that the New World TV and CAF entered into a three-year deal as the rights holders of 13 competitions in total, which will include the 2023 and 2025 Africa Cup Of Nations tournaments across 46 countries in the region, including South Africa.
This simply means that the free to air stations in the 46 countries who wish to broadcast the AFCON and any other CAF competitions would now have to sublicense and partner the rights through New World TV.
Meanwhile, Nigerians have reacted to the DStv blackout, describing it as bad, and not good for African football.
Football analyst, Ibukun Aluko compares the blackout to Nigeria not winning the title.
“DSTV not showing the AFCON 2023 is as bad as Nigeria not winning the AFCON. This isn’t good news at all for Africa,” he said.
“AFCON won’t be on DStv. This is actually crazy. How exactly are we supposed to watch it now?” a puzzled Mazi Olisaemeka cried.
In addition, Bit Iwuchukwu reminisced on not seeing Africa Cup Of Nations 2023 ads on Supersports.
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“No wonder I have been looking out for the AFCON advert on SS since December but it was nowhere. I started asking questions if SS doesn’t want to portray AFCON like the World Cup. This is sad,” Vit said.
